5.5 gallon spec v. Was all she wrote.

[MarieH]

UPDATED.   My caulerpa taxifolia melted, just as my original macro pack did, creating a mess inside the tank.  I believe maybe my light unit was not powerful enough, I have had it a few years and its a cheap chinese  clip on, which looked bright enough to my eyes...on a reverse cycle but the macro never took off.   I lost 2 frags of candy cane one  which became unglued (myself also unglued)  and fell into cracks in the sand,and another got stung by my larger striped candy cane (I think) lost  too much tissue to recover so I threw them away.   As well, overfeeding roids caused a cyano bloom and things were looking grim.  But I decided not to give in, I have done several water changes, cleaned out the aquaclear 50, put in rock rubble and 2 bags of nano sized chemipure blue.  And between blasting off cyano and reducing light schedule to 4 hours on and 4 off, it seem much improved.  The big candy cane (4 heads) big in Japan, maybe (smile) had tentacles out last night and is inflated today.   I split my blastomussa merletti into 3 and its priducing lots of new heads.  My zoas look small but I figure they will recover as well.    I might try chaetomorpha...if I can find a decent light for it.   On the plus side some of the caulerpa taxifolia has atattched itself to a rock so I will leave it for awhile. I also found a nice piece of a broad leaf red algea.. ( don't know what it is) marron and bronze in color,   .that hitchhiked on a frag plug and is doing very nicely.

 

Couple of bumps in the road of pico venture, but things looking up.   

[MarieH]

All weed corals.mushrooms,  pompom xenia, blue clove polyps, kenya tree at back still waking up    Surprisingly the red montipora digitata is doing the best.. Cyano is beginning to recede, overfeeding and neglect, my bad.

[MarieH]

Getting ready for fowlr  to add stonogobiops nematodes  barber poll goby and Randall,s pistol by end of next week safely a month after setup. 

[gena]

Cool!  So you'll have two tanks?  

[MarieH]

3 hours ago, gena said:

Cool!  So you'll have two tanks?  

Yes.   I suppose I do lol.  

[MarieH]

Got rid of my sand bed in 3g pico, added chaeto to the aquaclear sump, lit by the 9 watt jbj compact bulb.   Love the reflecty glassy bottom look, and appears brighter.    I cannot run the picotope light on an opposite light cycle due to it being too bright at night so it will run with tank lights on.  I sold a xenia rock and traded another for chaeto.  Less rock looks nicer as well.   

The spec v is showing diatoms now so I believe some snails will go in on the weekend.  yay. Prepping for Mr goby pistol pair.

[MarieH]

Here's Larry  or  Lori and "Steam" shovel the tiger pistol alpheid shrimp.  Sold to me as a gutattus or orange spot goby. I believe he is a Steinitz goby and will top out at 5 inches.  I could complain but its a good store and a case of mistaken identity and they are happy and at home.  As well I can remove to a larger tank in a year

 

 

[MarieH]

The new guys.

[Christopher Marks]

On 6/18/2018 at 10:24 AM, MarieH said:

Here's Larry  or  Lori and "Steam" shovel the tiger pistol alpheid shrimp.

Awesome new additions Marie, lots of personality!

[MarieH]

2 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Awesome new additions Marie, lots of personality!

They are. Out all day today, the goby hops up and down and gives me threatening yawns when I move too close. Hilarous!   

[MarieH]

New member in 3g Pico. "Splash"

[Christopher Marks]

Clown gobies are the best! Hi Splash 👋

[MarieH]

I finally got control of red slime in the 3g pico, was happy to see common green hair algae growing on the bottom glass. It was quickly cleaned up by the 2 cerith snails.  I did a water change and bang it came back big time.  The weather turned warm here, mid 90 degrees with no a/c.    Since my spec 5 was cooler in its location with just the goby pair in it, I decided to combine the contents in the 5g spec.    I threw out the worst affected rock, I shook out 2 pieces in the discarded water to remove most of the cyano that had zoas.  I rinsed out my chaeto and placed it in a breeder box top of the tank along

with apiece of xenia on asmall rock.

 

I saw traces of cyano between zoas and a slight amoun showed up in the breeder box.  Within a week, the cyano 

became fainter to my suprise.....  I was using the abi tuna blue par bulb and coverage was adequate but dark on the edges, I ordered an led strip from china chihiros marine.  The planted version is well reviewed but the marine version, not so much.  Anyway, I am not using the whites, too yellow..so I am using the blue green and red.  The red looks a bit odd but the corals look nice under it and ....no cyano, trace green on the rocks but 4 snails are doing well on it.  Coralline algae showing up.   The two gobies and pistol are coexisting nicely.   The tank contents look healthy.    I was doing almost complete water changes weekly on the 3g pico.  In the 5g I change a half gallon weekly, and the sand is clean and white.    

 

I stopped feeding reef roids since I now feed frozen food daily to the fish.  I think reef roids might of been my original problem.  I really don't know, but if its fixed I'm not going to break it.   ?‍♀️

 

 

[MarieH]

The gang is all here.

[Christopher Marks]

A handsome bunch, it's good to see you @MarieH! Any more trouble with cyano in the 5g?

[MarieH]

No it has cleared up with more flow, plus sand turnover by the pistol I think, everything looks clean and healthy.  More water volume as well?   The cyano receded and hasn't returned. yay! The only media I have ins a mini bag of chemipure blue on top of the stock  return pump,a hydor 240 nano,  and a heater, no floss or media basket..for now.   Fingers crossed.

 

I also had a problem with colonial hydroids but I threw out the worst infected rock and scraped off or chipped off pieces I could see.  I broke off a colony of infected zoas and saved 3 heads out of abourt 20.   Broke down the rock and rearranged it  for better flow and it looks good. Fingers crossed.

 

Can you believe the eystrain from hunting these little ###@$$$?   But its a small tank and I figure I got them all. 

[MarieH]

Happy New Year! 

[MarieH]

Just my yellow clown goby residing here now.  Larger go by and his tiger pistol are rehomed in a 120g.  I will probably get an emerald crab  for a valonia outbreak. Splash is very happy on his own. He or she eats from my fingers.  My fave fish of all time except for a tail spot  blenny I sold with my 65g a few years ago. 

[MarieH]

A splashy new year to all!

[Clown79]

Tank looks wonderful.

 

Happy new yr to you as well 

[Tamberav]

Looks awesome! Splash is cute 🙂

[vlangel]

Everything looks full and healthy.  Splash is adorable.  I wanted yellow clown gobies in my 56 gallon but they were pale and not eating.  I chose green clown gobies instead which are nice too but not the ' splash' of color that the ycg are.  Great little tank!

[MarieH]

3 hours ago, vlangel said:

Everything looks full and healthy.  Splash is adorable.  I wanted yellow clown gobies in my 56 gallon but they were pale and not eating.  I chose green clown gobies instead which are nice too but not the ' splash' of color that the ycg are.  Great little tank!

Thank you!  He's doing well but I also had limited success with them . I lost a yellow to ich and years later I lost  2 green clowns that I never saw eat.  They just disappeared.   I thought I would not try them again but the store I bought from has never sold me wrong.  I decided to try.  It's been a few months now  and all is well.  I did have success with citron clown goby but they get big and  nip  corals.  This guy is just right.

[MarieH]

I had a friend pass on to me a  vintage jebo cube r388 tank. I had considered some sort of saltwater tank but it only has 2 x 8 watt flourescent t5 tubes.  Hard to find  the actinic tubes so i made it a freshwater planted.    Maybe in time i could find a retrofit led or remove the top but its old and has a lot of distortion from the curve sides.    Yes I'm a freshy too!

[MarieH]

Got a digital light controller from ebay,  so its nice to have a ramping effect from 8 until 8pm.  I like watching the softies come to life as they feel the brightness level ramping over 30 minutes.  I run the chihiros  (spelling?) 501a marine version at top 60 percent midday since its only an inch or so above the waterline, laying on the spec v plastic hood.  It just gets warm to touch. I had it on legs open top but without the ramping controller I had to adjust the light level manually throughout the day because I could not leave it on at a higher level because it was too intense for the lowerlight  zoas which were shrinking and fading under the intensity.  I still dislike the whites in this thing, but being lower, the color looks more 10,000k which is ok.  I was used to the  15k abi bulb,  tuna blue on the bluer side.  But I'm warming up to this one.  This is a budget build, a 5g spec that was traded against a freshwater led, so I'm not investing a lot.  It all seems stable now so I will play with it until fall, find some new additions and maybe start a more serious reef tank then.  I like this easy peasey approach, no sweat reefing.  More fun to enjoy than continually tinker.